Wish me luck...

Well, here's unexpected!

I went in for another blood test and scan this morning. It turns out Myndi was right, and the large 'follicles' I had last month were the same sort of cysts that I had last September. One of them had disappeared completely and the other had shrunk to 10 mm, so the doctor was satisfied, although he still found my right ovary quite hard to find.

All then depended on the oestradiol, and I must confess I assumed it would be too high again and was resigned to waiting for next month.

Having had the tests, I went off to Niece #2's pre-school sports day. I was then due to look after #2 and #3 while my sister took #4 for her 8 week check and first lot of jabs.

Two things changed the plan somewhat. First, I had a call from the clinic saying that I was OK to start and should do my first jab as soon as possible. Expecting to be told to wait another month, I hadn't yet acquired any drugs, so said I would go back to the clinic to pick them up as soon as I could.

Then my sister reappeared a lot sooner than expected, because she had forgotten to register #4 at the doctor's surgery in advance (and nobody had reminded her, despite the fact that she had been there twice since #4 was born and had an appointment for this afternoon), and because she wasn't on the doctor's computer, they wouldn't give her the jabs.

So off I hopped back to London, where Aussie Nurse presented me with a huge bag of tricks. She offered to mix the first jab for me (450 IU of Fostimon), so I was able to watch her do it and refresh my memory, then I gave myself the jab right there in the office (which has four desks, all of which were occupied at the time, as well as the reception desk, at which there were a couple of people waiting). So OK, now I'm shooting up in public.

If you've been willing my oestradiol levels to go down, or praying for me, I'd like to thank you, because it clearly worked. On nosing through my file, I found that last month the level actually went up to 230 on the second day they tested it. Today, it was down from 230 yesterday to 93, which with FSH of 6.9 is awesome!

I'm back for another blood test tomorrow morning - and every day, including weekends, until egg collection. As well as the hormone panel, I'm having blood taken tomorrow for a natural killer assay - since my natural killer cells were slightly raised when I had my immune testing in March and levels can fluctuate from month to month anyway, they need to know what they're doing right now, so they can decide whether I need steroids or even IVIg - I hope not the latter, as each dose costs £1,300.

And in the meantime, the big thing I need to work on is that this clinic requires everyone on treatment to drink at least two litres of water and one litre of milk a day and to eat - preferably something containing protein - every two or three hours. I have a big bag of beef jerky and lots of nuts and seeds, so that shouldn't be too hard.

Six hours after the first jab, my stomach already feels bloated, so I think I can safely say that's a side effect I can look forward to over the next couple of weeks. Apart from that, I'm apprehensive and excited in equal measure.

Here we go...

Letting off steam

Forgive me if I have a(nother) little rant today.

When I arrived at the clinic early yesterday morning and told them I was on CD 3, the person I spoke to gave me the form for my blood test and told me to stick around in London, as I might be required to have a scan in the afternoon. I had foolishly decided to work from home, and had been planning to get home around 9:30 and put in a full day's work. I didn't have any of my work with me.

I very clearly told her that it would take me over an hour to get home and that I would have to hang around and kill time while waiting for them to get back to me. She said they would have the results by 11:30 and would contact me as early as possible.

At noon I went back to the clinic and told them that I would hang around in the waiting-room in order to ensure that everything could be dealt with as soon as possible.

At 1:30, I finally tracked down Aussie Nurse, who gave me my results and told me to go back this morning. All that time waiting around had been wasted - she seemed surprised that I had been told to wait, and the information she gave me could equally well have been given over the phone.

But that's not what made me cross - though I was a little agitated at the thought of the work waiting for me back home and the apparent endlessness of the waiting (in previous months, the call with the results has sometimes come through as late as 6 pm, and I was concerned that they might not get to me until then, since the promise to call me as early as possible obviously wasn't materialising).

No, what made me cross was the woman who was coming back for an initial consultation for her third IVF. The results of her first two successful attempts came in with her, as did her husband. Her husband didn't go up to the appointment with her, so it struck me that he and the children didn't really need to be there. As it was, she came in with a three-year-old and a baby. The baby was so chubby she was almost spherical, and this woman kept desperately trying to make her take a bottle, as the baby wriggled, squirmed, clamped her lips shut, turned her head away and demonstrated in every way she possibly could that she really didn't need a bottle right now.

For the 20 minutes or so that they were there, they took over the waiting room. The woman kept up a constant, high decibel stream of baby talk. She referred to herself as Mummles, and kept saying in a piercing voice to the older child, "Tell Mummles if you want a pee pee. Do you want a wee wee? Mummles needs to know if you want a pee pee." The child ran around creating havoc, and kept yelling at her father to try to get his attention. He had created a barrier in front of himself with a copy of The Sun and was completely ignoring all three of them, until the child's incessant and increasingly long and loud yells of "Daddy!!!!!" made me want to pick her up and force her head first right through his newspaper.

Eventually Mummles was called for her appointment and instructed Daddy to take the children to the park - why he couldn't have done that in the first place, I have no idea.

Meanwhile, a pregnant woman sat down next to me and lovingly caressed her bump. A nurse came in to admire the fat baby and chatted to another woman who turned out to be there for her six week scan. And I sat there trying to read my book and ignore all this, while wondering in the back of my mind whether I would ever get the chance even to start a cycle.

The waste of time didn't matter to me too much - I had a good book to read (had I only been able to concentrate on it), and the work will get done at some stage in the next three weeks. But a good half hour of the hour and a half I spent in that waiting room was the most exquisite torture that I have been subjected to for a long time.

And that's why I came home grumpy yesterday.

What more can I do?

This month's results are almost exactly the same as last month's. They are (with last month's in brackets to compare): FSH 6.9 (7), LH 3.6 (3.2) and oestradiol 230 (222). So the blasted oestradiol is still the sticking point, and I'm to go in again tomorrow morning for another blood test and a scan - no doubt to be told exactly what I ended up being told last month: "No, not suitable this month."

In one way I'm relieved - as I said, I really wasn't sure I wanted to do this during my last three weeks of work, and if my levels improve next month, I'll be able to relax completely while going through treatment, as I'll have finished work and have nothing else I need to do.

But that's the sticking point - IF my levels improve. And at the moment it seems to be a very big IF.

DH and I finished our four month programme of supplements about a month ago, and about two weeks ago we cut each other's hair again to send it off for reanalysis. I haven't sent it off yet - it costs money, and I thought if we were able to go ahead with treatment, we'd have our proof there that the supplements had done their job.

So now what do I do?

Send off the hair and pay the money, with no real evidence that the supplements are working? Because if a high oestradiol level can artificially make your FSH reading lower, then the improvement I thought I was seeing in my levels is illusory.

Not send it off and risk undoing the good that we've done over the last few months? Because we're definitely healthier and fitter than we were when we started all this. But then we've also made changes to our diet which I'm going to keep in place for as long as I can, so how much of the improvement in health is down to that?

I feel this strange mixture of relief that I don't have to cycle this month and fear that I might never be able to. But mostly I just feel desperate to know whether there's anything I can do to bring down my oestradiol levels.

And so it's back to waiting...

Bother bother bother bother bother!

So, it appears that my cycle is so regular that if I'm late one month (as I was last month, by a little short of two days), I'm early the next - by the same margin. And here are some of the reasons I'm not too impressed by that discovery:

1. AF showed up as I was getting ready to leave for a ceilidh. Since I wasn't expecting her till Sunday, I didn't have any of the heavy-duty CD1 supplies that would have ensured a carefree evening's dancing.

2. The only clean trousers I have for the weekend are white.

3. I discovered that AF was here 20 minutes after the clinic's phone lines had closed for the weekend. There is an emergency number, but I don't think they'd see this as an emergency, and all their patient information gives strict instructions that you should not turn up for blood tests or anything else at the weekend unless you have an appointment. That means the best I can do is turn up on Monday morning on the off-chance that they can fit me in for a blood test. It'll still technically be CD3, but all my other blood tests have been done on CD1 or 2 (as they prefer).

I feel a little ambivalent about this month anyway. I have exactly three more weeks in my job, and if we started to cycle now, egg collection would fall round about the time of our big leaving party. Plus I do still have work commitments in those last three weeks, and I'm not sure if the stresses of leaving a job I've been in for a few years would be compatible with the zen-like calm I hope to achieve during my treatment cycle.

On the other hand, there's that ticking clock and the fact that I haven't yet had an ideal CD1-3 blood test result, so that if it is right this month, I have to go ahead anyway.

Why is life never simple...?

It's all in the stomach

I went to boarding school for eight years from the age of 10. It was a wonderful school in a beautiful valley, and I made life-long friends there - I'm godmother to the daughters of two of them, and we're still in regular touch after all these years. Last weekend I went to a picnic organised by an old schoolfriend. Another classmate was there whom I hadn't seen since 1986. We recognised each other instantly, and chatted away as though we had seen each other yesterday.

So yes, I loved my school. The surroundings were beautiful, the friendships unbreakable, the education... well, it was perfectly adequate.

But every time we drove up the long school drive, there was a sinking feeling in my stomach - the feeling that (avoiding) homework was about to take over my life again, that my access to the television was going to be restricted, that I wouldn't see my family for at least another three weeks, and usually longer, that I was going to have to abide by a set of rules I didn't always agree with and shake down with people who weren't all what you might call soulmates.

Being several years younger than me, my sisters didn't attend this school until after I had left, and I often went back to visit them. I then became a school governor, and the journeys up the long school drive continued for a few more years. It's a special place that I've taken my DH to visit, and I've been back for various reunions and other occasions.

It's now 23 years since I left that school, and yet the school drive still has the power to stir those old feelings in my stomach. My head looks forward to the visits, but my stomach knows better, and remembers the aspects of school that my rose-tinted hindsight has forgotten quite successfully.

I was reminded of this last week. For the first time since the follow-up appointment after our failed cycle in December, I had occasion to take the road that leads to our old clinic.

For about five miles, I turned up the music on the car stereo, sang along loudly to it and sternly told my conscious mind that I was on my way somewhere completely different and there was nothing special or unusual about this road at all.

My stomach thought differently. As my car twisted and turned along the country road, my stomach churned and turned with all the feelings of hope, dread, disappointment and ultimate despair that characterised my dealings with that clinic. It wouldn't let me forget, it wouldn't let me move on. As the schoolgirl trapped inside me still experiences those first-day-of-term nerves on the old school drive, so the infertile inside me is reminded of all the times I drove this route, angrily swiping away treacherous tears as I tried to concentrate on the road ahead.

That was when I knew. My conscious mind will rationalise this thing, will tell me that if it never happens for us, if we never become parents, we'll be all right and will still have a happy life, even if it's not what we planned and hoped for. And most of the time, that'll be true.

But my stomach knows better. It knows that it will always carry that knot of grief, the knot that will be twisted at both predictable and totally unexpected times for as long as I live. And my stomach will tell my head, and my head will tell my eyes, and suddenly I'll be singing at the top of my voice and trying to drown out that little voice of pain that tells me I'll never be the same again.

An anniversary of sorts

A year ago today, DH and I nervously went for our first appointment with Mr No Nonsense. DH had provided a sperm sample in advance, and I was prepared for my first encounter with the ultrasound wand.

We weren't too sure what to expect, but were shell-shocked by the news that DH's sperm were so bad that we had pretty much no chance of conceiving naturally. Even IUI was not an option, and we were bluntly advised that IVF with ICSI was our only hope.

Thus began a year of struggles.

Struggles with my conscience as I came to terms with the fact that the only way I had any chance of achieving my life-long wish to become a mother was to go against the teachings of my Church.

Struggles with my body, as I learnt to give myself injections, forced myself to eat and drink more of some things and less of others, and battled to coax my aging ovaries into producing the one decent egg I needed.

Struggles with my feelings, as I fought the green-eyed monster that told me the people around me who got pregnant and popped babies out so easily were 'jumping the queue'.

Struggles with my tear ducts, as I shed more tears over the course of a few months than I had done throughout my life.

Struggles with my appetite, as I worked to lose the weight gained through comfort eating and treatments, denied myself some of my favourite foods for months on end, stuffed my body full of supplements and tried to follow the instructions I'd been given to improve my general level of health.

Struggles with my husband, as he failed to take any responsibility for the regime he too was supposed to be following and fell off the wagon again and again.

Struggles to persuade our little embryos to stay with us, and to come to terms with the fact that they were gone.

It's a year in which I've experience deep sorrow, physical and mental pain, soaring hope following by crushing disappointment.

And whenever I reached the pits of despair, I've been lifted up. DH and I haven't had to carry this burden alone. My family and friends have been amazing. You, my internet friends, know more of my story than any of my 'real-life' friends (apart from Jeannie, who has given me so much support). You have shared the ups and downs with me, hoped with me, prayed with me, rejoiced in my good news and given me words of wisdom and comfort in the many troughs of this rollercoaster ride, and for that I'm so grateful to all of you.

Taking back a bit of control

One of the things I hate most about IF is the loss of control - the inability to make plans, and the feeling that time is just pulling away from us. We were planning to go to South Africa last year to see my brother and his family, and it didn't happen. Then we were planning to go this August/September, and we've just pushed it back again. We haven't seen them since our wedding, and I so long to chat over coffee with Jeannie, to get to know my sweet godson and his brother again, and to see my brother.

Over the last two years, we've also put off a trip to China and innumerable other treats and trips that we thought of.

We've handed over our immediate future to XXXX clinic, so there's not an awful lot we can do for the moment about the lack of ability to plan - everything depends on the results of those monthly blood tests, which are not bad enough to give up but not good enough to be able to risk missing what might be the one perfect month.

But there are other treats we've denied ourselves. When I met DH, my pride and joy was my car - a classic MG which was rusting and of variable reliability, but which I loved driving and which took me on many great adventures. DH is not a car person, and he didn't like the MG much - but the real reason I sold it to buy a sensible car was because I was the only person available to drive DH's parents around, and our getting together coincided with his father's increasing frailty and inability to take the train as he used to. A reliable car with space for the in-laws was a necessity, and I consoled myself with the thought that we would soon be filling it with children of our own and have another reason for needing the sensible car.

More than two years on, we've been enjoying beautiful summer weather, and I secretly promised myself that if it turned out we definitely couldn't have children and we had to close the door on that dream, I would at least console myself with another frivolous, fun car. After all, DH is learning to drive now - I had always thought that if we got a second car it would be for him, but why should it be? I've been driving longer, so insurance is cheaper for me, and he's on the insurance for the sensible car anyway.

Last week, I decided that I'd had enough of waiting for the outcome of this treatment. It may or may not work - in fact, it may or may not ever even happen. My life is still on hold to a large extent, but there are some things I can take control of.

So my dream of a fun car is not going to wait until I know we can't have children. I can have fun while we're waiting, and if I end up in the happy position of having to sell the two-seater because the twins won't fit in it, then I'll do it with a singing heart, but knowing that I've really enjoyed my last summer of 'freedom'.

And things couldn't have worked out better once I'd made the decision. I picked up my new toy boy on Friday evening, and the weather has been perfect over the weekend for my first couple of days of topless motoring (the MG was not convertible).

We went to a picnic yesterday, and as we were leaving I asked if my friend's son wanted to have a look at my new car. I ended up with six small boys queuing for the chance to sit in the driver's seat, and I don't know who enjoyed the experience more - them or me.

The new boy in my life may not be flesh and blood, but he puts a smile on my face, and who could ask for more...?

I spoke too soon

I should have known it wouldn't be that simple. A problem that's lasted two years and is so strongly wrapped up in the workings of the inner psyche doesn't go away just like that.

I had a blissful few days where I naively thought that DH's delayed ejaculation/anejaculation was cured, because out of the blue it happened on its own not once, but twice.

I warned him that it probably wouldn't happen consistently every time from then on, and that we must both be relaxed about any times that it didn't happen. And I told him that the main reason I was so happy it had happened those two times was for his sake, because it was enjoyable for him.

So the first time after that that it didn't happen, I was quite relaxed about it. Unfortunately, DH wasn't - and ever since then, we're right back to square one, with him desperately working at it, trying to make it happen. I can tell that whenever we're making love, he's only thinking about one thing: "What can I do to make it happen? Will it happen this time? What if it doesn't? Will it ever happen again? Maybe if I try moving a little bit differently..."

Meanwhile, I'm silently praying that he'll get some relief, and trying everything I can to help him relax and try to feel those tense muscles unclench.

So there'll be no natural conception this month - my bubble has burst, and I'm so intent on trying not to make a big deal out of this that I daren't even suggest using the artificial methods that we tried before. And in any case, it's now too late for this month however we try to do it.

Last week I was cut to the quick when it was all over and I was trying to reassure him and tell him that it didn't matter (but it did, and a little bit of me was dying inside as I said it). In a voice full of despair, he said, "But all I want to do is make you pregnant."

There are only three things that make our situation now better than it was two years ago: I know it can happen, and I'm sure it will again one day, when he's ready; I know it's not my fault; and I know it's not because he doesn't find me desirable.

But right now, our love-making doesn't bring us comfort and togetherness, but tension and isolated despair. And I'm left wondering how I can help a man who over-analyses everything in life to relax and just let things happen.

Missing a layer of skin

I'm so thin-skinned at the moment, and so easily wounded by things people say.

I need to stop reading the comments on other people's blogs, because a comment that's made to help another person in a different situation can unintentionally stick another barb in my wound.

Like the one who commented that once she knew a NICU nurse who was treating her daughter had fertility problems of her own, she was afraid this nurse would steal her daughter.

Like the one who said of a nurse who was being mean that she obviously wasn't a mother herself, because a mother would be more sensitive.

Last week, my sister rubbished the advice of one of the best-selling authors of baby books, saying that because she doesn't have children of her own, she clearly knows nothing.

Just a couple more of the thousands of little pin-pricks that daily remind me that I'm a freak, that I'm not a member of the exclusive club I so want to join. And I watch the first-time mothers who've never changed a nappy before, never burped a baby before, holding the baby awkwardly in their arms as if they're afraid it'll break, and I wonder at the fact that they're members of this club and I'm not, and might never be.

I love my nieces and nephews, my godchildren, other children of my friends and family. I'm a useful babysitter, and I have tons of experience of looking after newborns, babies, toddlers and older children.

But don't worry - the fact that I don't have a baby of my own won't make me any more likely to steal any of your babies. It's a baby of my own I want, not somebody else's.

Fantastic!!!

Circus Princess has some amazing news today - I was feeling a little bit low when I started checking blogs this morning, and this gave me a real lift. I'm so thrilled for her, and hoping and praying that everything will go smoothly.

Unfortunately, Blogger seems to keep eating my comments on her blog, so let me just say it on here - CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

The trouble with not logging on every day...

... is that by the time I've read and commented on all my favourite blogs, I've run out of computer time.

Life is busy at the moment, and a bit of a curate's egg - good in parts. Today will mostly be spent ferrying my mother-in-law around and visiting my father-in-law in hospital. Hopefully normal service will resume soon...

The closet

At the weekend, I had coffee with a friend who is 20 weeks pregnant after her third round of IVF. She said that one of the things she has insisted on as her friends and family have found out about this pregnancy is telling them how it happened. She has felt very alone in her IF journey, and felt that she and her husband were the only people in her circle of friends who were struggling. Since she has started being open about her IVF pregnancy, she said it's amazing how many stories have come out of the woodwork about people having similar struggles.

I have found the same thing. There are a couple of people I will never tell about our struggles, either because they would be judgemental about us as Catholics going through IVF or because they would use my pain as a source of cheap gossip. Mostly, though, I've been very open about it throughout the whole process - everyone knew how much I wanted children, so it seemed pointless to try to hide the sadness I experienced about it not happening.

This week, we had visitors - a friend from my university days with her husband and baby. I hadn't seen her for several years, although we had been in touch by e-mail and Facebook. I must confess I was a little disgruntled when I heard that she was pregnant, especially as she had never seemed particularly interested in children and had made a comment on Facebook about how unexpected and unplanned her pregnancy was.

While we were catching up over a cup of tea, we talked about travel, and I said that it had been a bit difficult to make any plans over the last couple of years because of TTC and then the inability to plan around our IVF treatments.

That was when she told me that she totally understood the inability to plan, because she and her husband had tried for two years without success. Eventually, they gave up and when an opportunity came up for her husband to take a two year posting overseas with his employer, they decided to go for it. Within a couple of months of arriving in a new country, she was pregnant.

Apart from the fact that she told me the best cure for infertility is being in a cold environment with no heating so that you and your husband need to spend lots of time in bed keeping each other warm, it was a very enlightening conversation.

I know many people choose to keep their struggles to themselves for all sorts of reasons. It's also a bit of a double-edged sword having so many people know about our situation, because they regularly ask for updates and it's harder to keep private any bits of information that we don't feel ready to share. But I love to hear the stories of struggles and eventual successes, and every story I hear makes me feel a little bit less alone in this journey.

I think you might be right...

Myndi mentioned in her comment on my last post that her oestradiol had been elevated on one cycle because of a cyst. I've been thinking about that and looking back at what happened in my previous cycles, and I think she may be onto something.

The doctor who scanned me didn't mention the word 'cyst'. But on each ovary, the thing that was there was 14mm - and surely that's too big for a normal follicle on day 2. The cyst that I had in September was 17mm, and on IVF#1, after five days of stimming at a very high dose, my biggest follicles were 14mm and Nurse Perfect was saying I was almost ready to trigger.

So I'm pretty sure that I have at least one cyst, and probably two. And since these cysts are caused by a failure in ovulation, perhaps that explains why I had no ovulation pain last cycle, as I usually do.

If that's the explanation for my high oestradiol, then I'm fairly comfortable that it ought to come back down in the next one or two cycles - and if I can just keep my FSH down as well, then we should be going ahead soon. So I'm now thinking cyst-deflating thoughts, just in case...

Ho hum

Well, I went in for my scan and blood test yesterday. The doctor who did the scan wasn't very hopeful. There was one obvious follicle (or potential follicle?) on my left ovary. He then took ages to find my right ovary, with me saying, "The left one was pretty quiet on my last attempt - the right one produced a few more." When he did eventually find the right one, there was only one follicle there too.

I've already mentioned that XXXX clinic doesn't use computers. When you're queuing for a scan, they give you your file to take upstairs and you sit with it outside the door of the scan room. This gives a perfect opportunity to have a nose through your file while you wait, and I was able to compare the notes for last month - "Not suitable for treatment" - and this month - "May not be suitable for treatment". An improvement - but was it enough?

When I left the scan room, I read the note the doctor had added - again, it said, "May not be suitable", so everything was riding on the results of the blood test.

I had my 'Teach' session with the nurse, just in case the results came in OK. There was another person there for the session - she was on the long protocol and this was her first IVF. Our concerns and questions were a little different, shall we say.

Anyway, having had Gonal-F and Cetrotide last time, with Ovitrelle to trigger, this time I'll be on Merional and Fostimon, with Cetrotide to prevent early ovulation and Pregnyl to trigger. The fact that I'll be on a completely different regime gives me hope. I am a little nervous about having to break the glass vials, though.

Another thing that gives me hope is that I picked up a piece of paper in the waiting room with the latest results from the HFEA, and XXXX clinic's success rate in my age group is 40% - twice the rate of any of the other London clinics, and almost four times the rate of our old clinic. Given that 75% of patients at XXXX clinic have had previous IVF failures elsewhere, this success rate is phenomenal.

Despite this hope, I was prepared to be told that this month would not be suitable. I then had to wait for the rest of the day to get the call to confirm one way or the other. This afternoon I had to take my MIL to visit my FIL in hospital - he has just had a second operation, having been diagnosed with cancer. The call didn't come until almost 6 pm, just as I was turning into her road to drop her back home. As I picked the phone up, I accidentally pressed a button and cut the damn thing off - you can imagine my frustration.

Anyway, the nurse who called was the same one I'd had the teaching session with in the morning. She said that having reviewed my results, Mr Miracle Worker had decided that this was not a suitable month to start cycling. So that's it for another month, as far as the clinic is concerned.

It's funny - I thought back to how devastated I was when my first ever cycle was delayed last year. But this time I felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. Of course, I now know that a delayed cycle is so much less traumatic than a failed cycle. I only want to go ahead if there's a good chance of success. But I so want to get a shot at that 40% success rate.

So if you're the praying type, please pray that both my FSH AND my oestradiol will be within the acceptable range next month - because apparently I've been thinking too much about my FSH and not appreciating the importance of the oestradiol level. And hopefully the downward trend will continue as I relax more and wind down towards finishing work in August.

Delivering the message

You know what I really enjoyed about that phone call yesterday?

The first thing the nurse said to me was that my oestradiol level was a bit high and that Mr Miracle Worker wanted to do another test before deciding whether I should go ahead with treatment this month.

But then I asked for all the numbers - oestradiol first, because that was the first thing she'd mentioned, and then FSH.

The emotion that she put into that single word, "Seven", was amazing. I could hear the smile on her face, and her voice was full of excitement, as though she were sharing some wonderful secret with me.

I said, "But that's the lowest it's ever been!"

And she instantly responded, with the same smile in her voice, "I know - that's why we want to try to go ahead this month."

It's a big clinic with a lot of nurses and an even greater number of patients, and I doubt if either of us could pick the other out of a line-up, but we shared a real moment of excitement over my day 2 hormone levels. I suppose they must get as fed up with delivering bad news as we do with hearing it. A phone call with a bit of good news in it was a boost for both of us yesterday.

Drum roll, please

Don't ever let anyone try to tell me FSH levels aren't adversely affected by stress.

The clinic just called with my results, and they're the best ever - FSH 7 (yes, seven - that's a little over half what it was when first tested), LH 3.2, oestradiol 222 and prolactin 292.

I'm so excited about my FSH level - but this is a little tempered by the fact that my oestradiol is back over the magic 200 number. Although it's the FSH they concentrate on more, the high oestradiol apparently still makes me borderline.

My instructions are to go in for a scan and another blood test tomorrow, and on the basis of those they'll decide whether or not to recommend going ahead with treatment. I don't know if it's a sign of optimism on the nurse's part that she said I'd need to plan to be there for a while tomorrow so that I can have my injection training etc.

Please keep everything crossed for me...

Here we go again

Today is CD 1, so I've just arranged to go in tomorrow for another blood test. Hopefully this time my FSH will be a bit lower again and I'll be able to start IVF #3.

What I didn't tell you about the excitement of the other day is that the first time it happened was on day 13 of my normally 26-day cycle. I usually ovulate around day 13, so for the first time ever, this put me in with a chance of a 100% natural conception.

Of course, Mr No Nonsense's words of last year were ringing in the back of my head, when I told him about our problem and he said, "With these sperm results, it wouldn't have happened anyway." But I was also aware that DH's sperm had improved significantly since then.

So when my AF was due on Monday and there was no sign of it, I tried not to get excited, but I was a little distracted. And when I got through the whole day at work yesterday and there was still no sign, I was a little more distracted.

I remained a little bit realistic - I kept telling myself that I was waiting for AF to show up because I needed to arrange my blood test, and reminding myself that although I think of my cycle as being like clockwork, I have been a day late before.

I have to confess, though, that I enjoyed a couple of days of day-dreaming about what it would be like to find out that I was pregnant, imagining telling DH he was going to be a father, calculating how many weeks gone I would be by the time I finished work...

But when I saw last night that AF was on her way, and then when I woke up to a full flow this morning, I wasn't too sad, because the delay was just long enough to ensure that it's OK that I can't go into London today and that I'll be just fine doing the blood test tomorrow.

I'm hoping for a nice low FSH number after being on holiday this month, sorting out my work situation and generally being less stressed than I have been for ages. But if I don't get it, we have another month of trying naturally - which makes me feel as though there's only two weeks to wait rather than four before we have another chance.

So all in all, it's been a nice couple of days with my head in the clouds, and when I came down to earth it wasn't with the crash that it has been on so many previous occasions. And now we'll see what happens next...

Out of context

When one of my US nephews was about 3 or 4, he saw his preschool teacher in Walmart. Normally outgoing, confident, and very fond of his teacher, his first instinct was to hide - she wasn't meant to exist out of school, and he was completely thrown by her presence in the real world.

Yesterday I knew how he felt. I was in Starbuck's in town with a friend, and Nurse Perfect from my old clinic walked in. I suppose it wasn't all that unexpected - I did know that I live between the clinic and her home, because she once offered to drop some drugs off for me on her way home, and my town has a Saturday market and a couple of other attractions that make it worth the occasional visit.

I don't know if she saw me, and even if she did, I don't know if she recognised me - my face wasn't the thing she was usually looking at when I saw her, and the part of me she is most familiar with isn't usually on display in a coffee shop. Even so, and even though I loved her when I was going through treatment, my face started to burn and I sank lower in my chair and had to mumble excuses to my friend about how hot it was getting next to the window.

I wonder what the correct etiquette is here in buttoned-up Britain when you bump into your ex-IVF nurse when she's off duty...?

Excitement!

I wasn't sure whether to blog about this, but it's a story that I would have loved to hear a couple of years ago.

When we married, DH and I were both virgins. It took us a few days to figure out how to get that thing to go in there, and once we did, we found that we had another little problem. I did a bit of googling when I got back home, and discovered that there was a name for it - delayed ejaculation. Subsequent reading indicated that it was actually more like situational anejaculation.

This meant that our TTC was always a bit more mechanical and a bit less romantic than one might have hoped - we tried various methods of DIY artificial insemination over the first several months of our marriage before eventually going to the clinic last July. When Mr No Nonsense asked us if we had any problems, we told him about it, and his immediate and blunt reply was, "Well, it wouldn't have worked anyway, because you don't have enough sperm."

Since then, of course, DH's sperm have improved hugely thanks to the regime we've been on - but we still had the basic problem with getting them anywhere near my (elderly) eggs.

And so we come to the big news - last Monday, for the first time ever, and after more than two years of trying, DH successfully finished the job. And a week later, he did it again, proving that it wasn't just a one-off fluke.

This is a hugely big deal for us - it means that, however slim the chances of success, we finally get a chance to TTC like normal people. We still have all our other issues, but we finally have an element of hope that we never had before.

So if anyone stumbles across this who is in the same situation I was a couple of years ago, I have this to say - it can be hugely upsetting and frustrating, but if you stay calm, try not to let it become an issue between you, and persevere, it can eventually come right even after you've resigned yourself to it never happening.

I'm back!

After our weekend away, we went off on holiday with US bro and his family and my parents. The place we stayed at claimed to have internet access, but at £7 per hour it was access I wasn't prepared to use!

We went to the seaside, and it was the coldest seaside holiday we've ever had, with fog to boot on the first day. Other than the weather, though, it was a good break, and lovely to get to know my nephews and nieces again after spending very little time with them on their last two visits (for my wedding and UK bro's wedding).

The legal process for the redundancies has been grinding on, and the holiday gave me time to think about what I want to do. My department is being reduced in size and we have to reapply for the jobs that are remaining. I discussed it with DH and with my parents and SIL, and it all boiled down to 'what would I regret more?'.

The answer then became fairly clear - if I carried on working and then failed to get pregnant, I'd always wonder whether leaving that job and taking a bit of time off to relax and destress might have helped. If I left this job and didn't get pregnant, I could always find another job, and if it's not as well paid as this one - well, we don't actually need as much as I earn at the moment.

So when they phoned me on Monday to give me the formal notification that the consultation has finished and I'm 'at risk of redundancy', I told them I wouldn't be applying for one of the new jobs. Yesterday was my first day back in the office, and I had a meeting at which I confirmed that and was told what my package will be. It's an amount that if I'm careful, I should be able to live on for about a year - though to put it in perspective, it's also about the amount that we will have spent on IVF by the time we've finished IVF #3.

Although I'm redundant, I'm still needed for the moment, so my agreed finishing date is in early August. I'm in the happy position of having to beat off unwanted job offers at the moment, but I'm trying not to burn any bridges, and to say 'not right now' rather than a straight 'no'.

So the stress is reduced, and I'm hoping the way is clear for IVF #3 to start next week. I also have some other news which I consider rather exciting, but I'll keep you in suspense for that until tomorrow - I'm off to catch up on everyone else's blogs now...

Gone fishin'

Thank you so much for all your comments and your support - it means a lot to me.

And you're right about how supportive my family are. When I mentioned my brother's news to my mother - it was rather tentative, since I didn't know whether he had told her yet, so I just said, "Have you spoken to ___ and ___ yet? - her instant response was, "Yes - it just gets harder, doesn't it?" I so appreciated the fact that, although I know she'll be excited to have another grandchild, I didn't have to pretend with her. I hope they all know that I am genuinely happy for them - I'm sad for me, and the timing sucks, but I don't begrudge them their happiness in any way.

Anyway, I may not be around much over the next few days - my US brother and SIL and their seven children are staying with us until Monday. I've managed to find bed space for everyone, and have bought a mountain of food - when the woman on the cash desk in Costco saw my trolley, she instantly offered me executive membership! It'll be exciting having eleven people for three nights in a house that only has one bathroom, but I'm sure the neighbours will help us out if there's an emergency!

Have a great weekend, and if you're in the UK - enjoy this beautiful sunny weather. (Also, please think of me tomorrow - as well as having my hyperfertile brother and his family staying with us, we're going to Niece #4's christening tomorrow, and it'll be the first time I see my little brother and his wife since they announced their news. Could the weekend get any more child-centric?)

Out of turn

Thank you so much for your supportive comments last night. I wasn't able to be more specific in that post, because I'd been asked not to tell anyone else in the family, and one of my SILs reads this blog.

So here's what happened. I was home alone while DH had another driving lesson, and the phone rang. It was my little brother - the one who got married last year, just over a year after we did.

In rather hesitant tones, he said, "We've got some rather unexpected news."

Now, when I say that I specifically prayed that this wouldn't happen just yet, I don't think I was being horrible. They do want children, and I obviously want it for them as well, because I wouldn't wish what we're going through on anybody, especially not someone I love. But they weren't planning on having them just yet - in fact, the timing isn't brilliant for them, since my brother is also facing possible redundancy and they're currently living in temporary accommodation while doing up an old ruin of a house they bought last year.

My lovely brother didn't specifically say anything about our situation, but he did tell me that I was the first to know, and it was clear to me that it was because of our situation that he made sure we heard it first and had time to get used to the idea before everyone else started to burst with excitement.

And that's one of the things I hate about this whole IF business - it affects everybody. When my sister got pregnant with #4, she and my BIL agonised over how to tell me, and worried about upsetting me. My little brother has obviously thought of our situation and made sure he tried to tell me in a sensitive way. And I know when he told my parents and my sister, one of their first concerns would have been about how I would react.

It shouldn't be this way. The whole family should just be greeting the news of another new little life with nothing but joy and happiness, not worrying about whether the news will upset me. I don't want to be this person.

The trouble is, though, I AM this person. I cried buckets last night, and I'm crying again as I type this. I managed to sound excited for my brother, and I truly am pleased for him. I know he hasn't taken the whole baby thing for granted, and has thought about the possibility that they might not be able to have children when they wanted them. But they've still managed to do it - unplanned, and at a time when my SIL has been travelling for work so much that it's astonishing that they managed to fit it in.

I'm grateful for two things - first, that my brother was thoughtful enough to tell me first, so I can get used to the idea before everyone else starts talking about it. Hopefully, he'll have no idea that I'm anything other than excited for him.

Secondly, I'm grateful that I heard over the phone and that I won't be seeing any of my family for a few days. I hope that by the time I do see them - at #4's christening this coming Saturday - I'll be able to talk about it without crying.

Truly, it's not that I'm not happy for them. But they got married over a year after us. I just feel as though we've now truly missed our turn. I'm also now terrified to go ahead with IVF #3. If it fails, then when their baby is born I'll be in exactly the same position as I was a couple of weeks ago when waiting for #4 to be born - reading excited family e-mails and thinking of what could have been if my IVF had been successful.

DH is wonderful - he held me while I cried last night, and he made all the right noises. My brother is wonderful, and so thoughtful to tell me the way he did. But life? Well, it pretty much sucks.

Gutted

This weekend, I very specifically prayed for something not to happen right now, because I didn't think I'd be able to cope with it.

It was a bit of an odd thing suddenly to pop into my head, because it wasn't something that was on the cards at all, and I also prayed for the strength to cope with it if it unexpectedly did happen.

And today it happened.

I don't even know why I suddenly thought of it this weekend, but it was the one thing I was hoping not to hear about this week. I'm gutted, but I also feel horrible for feeling this way.

Sometimes life is very, very unfair.

More positive news

I've been trying since Thursday to get in touch with the clinic and find out what my other levels were, as they only gave my FSH level in the message they left. I was told on Friday that someone would call me back, but Friday evening came and nobody had, so I resigned myself to waiting until Tuesday, since Monday is a bank holiday.

I'd forgotten that XXXX clinic is open seven days a week. Yesterday morning I was working on a little DIY project, and when I'd finished I decided to have a good long soak in the bath. After only five minutes in the bath, my mobile - which I'd left downstairs - rang. That ruined my bath, more so when I checked the message on the phone and it was the clinic that had rung. The message didn't give any information, but said they'd try me again today. I couldn't ring them back, because although the clinic is open at the weekend, the switchboard is not - they don't have enough staff working weekends to deal with non-urgent queries.

I swore and stamped around a little bit, then resigned myself to not knowing anything until today, and just hoped they wouldn't try to call while I was in church today.

But then in the afternoon, I was driving to the shops and as I sat waiting for a traffic light to turn green, my phone rang again - and it was the clinic again! Of course, I had to (illegally) answer it.

So, although my FSH is slightly up at 12.3, my oestradiol has actually gone down again, to 143 (its lowest level ever), LH is 6.8 and prolactin is within the normal range (she didn't give me a number). So all in all, those numbers are not too bad (for me), and certainly still better than last summer.

I mentioned that things had been a bit stressful recently and asked if this could affect my FSH level. The nurse said stress definitely had an adverse effect on FSH in many patients, and if things calmed down a bit this month I might well see a better result next month, though she also said it's not always easy to tell, since FSH levels fluctuate anyway from month to month.

After a pretty awful morning yesterday, I spent most of the day feeling as though I had a little ball of panic sitting on my chest. The call from the clinic didn't make it go away straight away, but it certainly helped.

Now all I need to do is keep calm over the next 22 days, and hope that makes the difference.

My angel

My grandfather used to have a very powerful and rather vengeful guardian angel. If anyone ever upset my grandfather, they would often walk into a door, or drop something, or stub their toe, soon afterwards, and my grandfather would nod wisely and say, "That was my angel."

This morning, for reasons I won't go into, I was angrier than I have ever been with DH's sister. I was actually crying with rage and frustration at yet another example of her extreme selfishness and yet another weekend that was going to be ruined for me because of it.

Ten minutes after I got off the phone to DH (who stayed with his mother last night after visiting his father in hospital), I was typing up a storm, writing a really long ranting post about how angry I was, when I got a text from him to say that the situation had been somewhat resolved and SIL was going to keep her promise after all.

I think I must have inherited my grandfather's angel, and he's given her a bit of a nudge. It's nice to have a vengeful angel on your side from time to time...

No easy answers

The two major upheavals going on in my life continue to run in tandem.

On Wednesday, I received an offer of voluntary redundancy, which is valid for a period of one week only. I still don't know what roles might be on offer after the restructuring, what the likelihood is of me getting one, or whether we will succeed in persuading the firm to change its mind about some key elements of the new job descriptions that we're not happy with. I'm unlikely to have any more information to help me make that decision before the deadline has passed, so either I make a firm decision and leap into voluntary redundancy now, or I wait and see how the situation unfolds. For the moment, I'm waiting.

Also on Wednesday, my AF turned up. I didn't particularly want to go ahead with treatment this cycle - there's too much going on at work, my FIL's in hospital again, my sister's just had her baby, my US brother and his family are coming over next week and there's a family holiday planned... But once again, I didn't want to be forced to make an actual decision not to go ahead, just in case of this was our only opportunity.

I was at the hospital with MIL when XXX clinic called with the results of my CD 2 blood test yesterday, and I missed the call. So I don't know all my levels, and haven't had a chance to discuss it with them - I'm waiting for a nurse to call me back.

What I do know is that my FSH this month is 12.3, and they don't recommend going ahead with treatment. Which is what I wanted really - I couldn't have coped with treatment this cycle on top of everything else.

But... that FSH level seems to be creeping up again. It's still not as high as it was last summer, but it's higher than last month, which was higher than on my monitoring cycle in March. And I actually did a bit of I-know-I-shouldn't-but-I-will-anyway Googling last night, and found something that suggested that if anything, stress actually LOWERS FSH, rather than raising it as I had thought.

So I'm happy to be going on the family holiday, and not to be turning into a pincushion for another month, but now I'm nervous about whether my levels will be suitable next month. And XXXX clinic seems to operate a 'three strikes and you're out' policy, so if my FSH is still high next month, that might be the end of the road with them.

I'm nervous. In a month's time, I could be forced to take a job that combines all the worst elements of my existing job and takes away all the fun parts, at the same time as facing another rejection from Mr Miracle Worker. Or I could have a redundancy cheque, the prospect of a summer off and an orange to practise my injections on.

The one thing I'm clinging onto is that my next AF is due on 21 or 22 June. And that means that if my FSH is OK next cycle, then egg collection, embryo transfer and beta testing would all be in July. And who could ever have predicted that...?

The way things work

On our way back from my sister's on Sunday evening, DH and I talked about what a mad month this has been, and how difficult it would have been to get through it if I'd been six or seven months pregnant.

There's been all the uncertainty over the redundancy - OK, pregnancy might have protected me, because there are all sorts of extra employment law rights you get once you're pregnant, but I would have been facing at the very least a huge change in my working conditions and the loss of several valued colleagues.

Then this weekend I basically spent the whole weekend helping to look after my nieces - my mother had cleared her diary for a fortnight, but having stayed with my sister and helped with the older children for all that time, she had to leave the day after #4 was born. My BIL is lovely, but childcare isn't really his thing, so I took #1-3 to the park, changed nappies, wiped bottoms, did bathtime and bedtime, and in between all that, rocked #4 to sleep, passed her to my sister for feeding when she woke up, took her back and burped her, and did all the other million and one things that need to be done when you have a newborn, a 1-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old in the house.

And today my FIL is having an operation, so I'll be going backwards and forwards again this week to take my MIL to the hospital to visit him.

And all of that is on top of just generally being very busy with normal everyday stuff.

I said to DH that it now made sense that IVF #1 and #2 didn't work out, because I was clearly needed over these couple of weeks to help a lot of other people out.

But then I said that I hope it'll be our turn now. My sister's not going to have another baby - certainly not in the next few months, and I'm pretty sure she's hoping #4 will be the last. DH is making progress with his driving, and hopefully if his parents need this level of help again, DH will be able to do the driving, or at least share it. And I'm pretty certain that in a month's time I will be unemployed and all my current work worries will be gone.

Perhaps the universe is finally clearing its diary for us now...

Wonderful family

Honestly, I couldn't wish for a better family than I have.


We went to meet our new niece on Thursday evening, and my sister and BIL asked my DH to be her godfather. He is absolutely chuffed to bits, and keeps proudly telling everyone he meets that he has a goddaughter.

My parents both made a point of asking me on the phone during the day if I was OK, and gave me huge long hugs when I arrived at the house in the evening.

When I arrived, #4 was demonstrating the impressive power of her lungs, and she was passed from person to person and happened to fall asleep when I was holding her. I made a comment about how lucky I was that I was the one holding her when she happened to cry herself out, and my sister said, "Don't be silly - we all know that you know what you're doing with babies." Somehow that made me feel really good.

Then in a quiet moment while my parents and other sister were bathing the older children, my sister and BIL asked DH and me how the IVF was going and just took time to show their concern - within 12 hours of my sister giving birth, and after a sleepless night. Their selflessness and generosity just overwhelms me. They also talked about how they agonised over how to tell us about this pregnancy, the discussions they had over it with each other and with my parents, and how hard they tried to find the time and way to tell me that would make it least painful for me.

Jeannie, as you all know from her comments, is wonderful.

And US SIL would be devastated if she knew how her recent e-mails have hurt me, but we haven't seen the US family since all this started, and having sailed through seven problem-free pregnancies (most of which were unplanned), what we're going through is just completely outside her realm of experience.

I was talking to my mother on the phone this morning, and she said she thought I had been very brave over the last few days. I don't feel brave, but I do feel wonderfully supported and cared about by my family and friends - including all of you, so thank you so much for all your lovely caring comments.

Eleven days

Well, the baby didn't arrive on Sunday - or the next day, or the next. My sister went in to be induced yesterday, and UK Niece #4 finally appeared shortly before 2:00 this morning. She was 11 days late, and those 11 days (plus the previous week, after my sister was told the baby was fully engaged and could arrive at any time) have been Baby Central in this family, with daily updates emanating from my sister's neck of the woods and regular e-mails from my US SIL about what a special time this is, what a miracle it is to know that you're carrying a life within you, how great my sister is, how exciting it all is.

And don't get me wrong - it is exciting, my sister is great, and I can't wait to meet #4. I'll be going shopping for some cute little outfit during my lunch break today and hopefully meeting her after work. Happiness and excitement will be all around.

But am I remembering that after #3 was born while we were on our honeymoon, DH and I smiled at each other as we toasted her with champagne and said, "We'll be next"?

Am I remembering that if IVF #1 had been successful, I'd be pretty close to giving birth myself?

Has every one of US SIL's recent e-mails inadvertently pierced me to the heart as they emphasise exactly what I'm missing out on?

Did I turn again to DH after I put the phone down and say once again, "It's our turn next"?

And did I lie awake for an hour after that, thinking about the new baby, thanking God for the new life, but also aching to hold my own baby in my arms, before creeping downstairs to get a glass of milk and my laptop and try to quell the thoughts racing round my tired mind?

Yes to all of the above...

Celebration of life

Five years ago today, my sister went into hospital for a fairly routine operation. It was to be keyhole surgery, and the recovery time was going to be short. My mother was staying at my sister's house to look after my 13-month-old niece.

That evening, I dialled my sister's number. It was my father who answered the phone, and I didn't immediately twig that this was unusual - he was still working full-time at that time, and should have been back at home after a full day's work.

Cheerfully, I said, "Hello Daddy! Is my little sister all right?"

There was a pause, and then the bottom fell out of my world as he replied, "No, I'm afraid she's not." Replaying that conversation in my head, I can still feel the emptiness that settled in the pit of my stomach on hearing those words.

The surgery had gone disastrously wrong, and she was in intensive care. The next 24 hours would be critical. Nobody knew whether she would live, and if she did live, there was a strong chance that the massive blood loss could have caused brain damage. The damage couldn't be assessed until she woke up.

We were talking about that day last weekend. My father asked my sister when she first realised that something had gone horribly wrong, and she replied, "When I woke up and saw you there." Obviously she was quicker on the uptake than I had been!

My father talked about how after the initial shock was over, we started to worry about whether her brain had been damaged. My SIL, who married my youngest brother last year and was hearing many parts of this story for the first time, lightened the mood by asking, "And was it?"

Since those awful days, my sister has had two more children and she and her children have continued to bring love and happiness to the whole family. Today she is a week past her due date with another baby - tired, fed up, anxious for it to come out and meet the world.

What a marvellous celebration of life it would be if the baby arrived today, on this anniversary of the day we almost lost its mother.

The clunking hand of fate

Sometimes, the universe is really heavy-handed in the messages it sends out to us.

While I was working myself into a state of nervous exhaustion over all the uncertainties in my life, Sonja was facing even greater uncertainties with not just the question of a little bit of job uncertainty at stake, but true matters of life and death - and she is facing them, as she has the whole of her very difficult and scary high-risk pregnancy, with such grace and courage.

While I was grumbling that my employers didn't appreciate me, Myndi was dealing with a heartbreaking family crisis.

And while I was weeping on the phone to my mother and telling her that the firm's proposals represented the worst possible scenario, one of my friends was searching an ultrasound monitor in desperate hope of finding a sign that her own worst fears had not been realised.

I had a text last night from this friend, who had recently got her first ever BFP from her fourth fresh IVF cycle. At six weeks, she had the joy of hearing a heartbeat. This week, at a little over 10 weeks, she went for a scan. The baby was small, silent and still. There was no heartbeat. Her body was still clinging on to her precious baby, but the baby had lost its fragile grip on life - another little life over before it had ever really begun.

So OK universe, I get it. I was selfish, overdramatic, and my priorities were temporarily skewed.

Now can we please all have some good news?

An alternative 2WW

Wednesday saw the end of a two week wait of a different kind as I heard a bit more about my employer's proposals for redundancies in my department.

On first hearing, it was the news I had been dreading - several redundancies in the department, but the possibility that I would be required to stay on, possibly with reduced pay, possibly with reduced hours, and certainly with a very different job description. This led to the thought that I wouldn't be able to bear to do that job and would end up resigning, leaving me with no redundancy payoff and no job - as I said when I heard the news, the worst of all possible worlds.

24 hours, various discussions with my boss and a day of teaching one of my favourite groups gave me a different perspective. How could I say that continuing to be paid a pretty decent salary to do a job that will still have elements I enjoy is the worst of all possible worlds? There are people who are losing their homes, losing their savings, struggling to keep their families fed and clothed, and here I am complaining that I might be forced to keep my job.

Yes, it'll be a change. Yes, they're dumping something that I've worked for almost five years to build up from nothing. Yes, I feel hurt and disappointed that these decisions have been made.

But either I'll get a redundancy payout and get the summer off, or I'll still have a job. If I get a reduced hours job, I'll still have decent pay but will have more spare time. And if I get a full time job, I'll be able to save more and perhaps retire earlier, or make plans to do something different, or - and this would be the real dream - take paid maternity leave in a few months' time and then have more choices available to me in terms of how much time I can then spend at home with my child(ren).

On Wednesday I was furious about the stress that I'd been put through and would continue to be put through.

Today I feel tired, a little drained after the drama of the week, desperately in need of a weekend, but also calm and hopeful. There are three options - each of them has its advantages and disadvantages, and I'm beginning once again to be able to focus on the advantages.

I now have a fairly major role to play in the consultation, and at the same time I need to keep my stress levels as low as possible, because high stress means high FSH. I need to take one day at a time and not think about all the ifs, buts and maybes of the next few weeks and months.

It's time to chill and let things happen...

One problem he can solve

When I had my little meltdown the other day, one of the more minor things I told DH I was worried about was this weekend.

We're due to spend Saturday night with DH's oldest friend and drinking buddy, who we haven't seen for a few months. He and his wife don't have children, and don't like children very much (although I do wonder which came first, because I also understand that she had some sort of fertility issues). And every time we've spent the night with them in the past, it's turned into a massive drinking session.

I've raised it a couple of times and said that of course DH can have a couple of drinks, but asked him to exercise moderation. He's laughed it off, and he made a comment to a friend last Sunday that we would be away this Saturday "and a lot of alcohol will be consumed".

I mentioned my concern to him, and he instantly looked contrite and said, "I should have told you earlier and not made jokes about it."

And what he thought he should have told me is that he had already decided that he wouldn't have even the one or two drinks we had talked about, because drinking a limited amount would make his friend suspicious anyway. So he had decided to come clean, tell them that we're not drinking, and explain why. He hasn't yet decided whether to tell them about the two failed IVFs we've already had, but he is going to tell them about the regime we're on at the moment, and that we're preparing for IVF.

I have no idea how the conversation will go on Saturday - whether his friend will be sympathetic or hostile towards the idea, given that he and his wife decided that they didn't want children and would not pursue any sort of fertility treatment; whether his friend will make jokes about DH 'firing blanks' (a distinct possibility, since his friend has rather an off-colour sense of humour); whether they'll accept that we're not drinking or try to persuade him to have 'just one or two' (since he always ends up drinking more than he intended with this friend).

But I'm so grateful that DH has finally hoisted on board how important this is, and is even willing to go further than I would ever have asked him to go in this respect.

Understanding more

One of the things that DH said about that article was that he thought the author was exaggerating when he talked about his wife avoiding places where babies might be - because he's not aware that I've selectively avoided some of my more smug friends who have babies and small children, and we've continued to spend a lot of time with my sister and her children.

It was a real eye-opener for him when I explained that this was not an exaggeration at all. I reminded him of a comment a friend of ours made at a party a couple of weeks ago - she was talking to another friend about two couples who were mutual friends of theirs and said that they don't speak to each other any more. When asked why, she responded sotto voce, "It's because A's pregnant and S and H can't."

And then, while talking generally about the redundancy, IVF and everything else that's crappy in my life at the moment, he revealed how he's been feeling.

As a teenager, he experienced two major upheavals in his life - when he was about 13 or 14, his father had a nervous breakdown, and then a few years later, his brother died. He talked more than he ever has before to me about how he felt on those two occasions, and said that after those two cataclysmic events, the ups and downs of life had never been able to bother him in the same way.

And then he added, "Except the IVF."

He'd never really talked about how he felt, although I was aware that he had high hopes for IVF #1 and was fairly crushed when it failed. But to hear that he ranked that first failure as one of the three cataclysmic events of his life shook me a bit - and also reassured me. He wants this as badly as I do, and not just because he doesn't want me to be upset. But as a man, he's better able to compartmentalise things and push it to the back of his mind when we're not actually going through treatment.

So now each of us understands the other a bit better, and understands how much this means, how much is at stake. And I think I understand why he keeps saying, "This doesn't have to be the last try. If it doesn't work, we can try again."

It's not just for me - he wants it too. And somehow, that makes it all feel so much easier, as if there are two of us carrying this burden, and not - as it has often felt - just me.

Sonja's quads are here!

Many many congratulations to Sonja and her husband on the safe arrival of Sophie, Ethan, Liam and Jude. All four are now in NICU, so I'm hoping and praying that their stay there will be brief and uneventful, that Sonja recovers quickly from her emergency c-section and that the whole family will soon be united at home.

Overwhelmed

I had a mini-meltdown last night - I think I managed to hide it from DH when he made me cry on Sunday, but there was no hiding this one.

I just feel so overwhelmed with uncertainty at the moment.

The biggest question, of course, is will we ever be parents? And that question subdivides into questions like will my FSH be right next month, or the month after? When will our next IVF actually happen? Will I even get the chance to go ahead with IVF at this clinic?

And those questions lead into the question of my brother's visit from the US with his family at the beginning of next month - will we have to fit our treatment round it? Will we be able to go on the seaside family holiday, or will we need to stay in London for daily appointments at the clinic? This matters to me, because I love my American family and don't see them nearly often enough.

And if it doesn't happen next month, will the following month be better? Will I still have a job? Whether I'm made redundant or not, I know we'll cope, but it's the strain of going for two weeks (and counting) having been told I'm at risk of redundancy but having been given no idea of what the firm's proposals are or what the probability is of losing my job that makes it impossible to plan anything. I've obviously managed to put a positive spin on this to my family, because the only comment I got from US SIL was delight at what an exciting time this is for me, but I don't feel excited right now - as I said to DH, at the moment I just feel utterly defeated.

If I do keep my job, will it be changed beyond recognition, so that I'm no longer doing the work that I enjoy?

If I don't keep my job, will I be able to earn enough to make the necessary contribution to the household pot by working freelance? And how am I going to build up the freelance work?

And whether I keep my job or not, the situations that I'm thinking of only make sense if I'm going to get pregnant. As I said to DH last night, if I don't get pregnant, all I am is an unemployed woman who can't have children (or a woman in a job she hates who can't have children, because even if I keep my job, everything is changing, and not in a good way).

And then there are the day-to-day uncertainties - is the course I'm teaching this week going to be the last course ever on this programme that I designed, wrote, and built up from nothing? If so, how much work do I put into updating it, knowing it's never going to be used again?

I discovered yesterday that a colleague had gone behind my back to do something which was the complete opposite of what we had agreed - do I confront him, or does it ultimately not matter because we're both going to lose our jobs anyway?

Even my country seems to be conspiring to keep me in a state of nervous uncertainty, with no parliament formed several days after the general election and the increasing likelihood that an unelected minority is going to ignore the will of the people and seize power, just because they can. And because they'll need the support of the Scottish and Welsh nationalists to form any sort of majority, and because England is solidly Tory and has no devolved parliament, you can bet that any Lib-Lab coalition is going to be better for Scotland and Wales than it is for England. And what worries me about an unstable government is the risk of increased inflation, with the result that our savings won't stretch as far as they would in a stable economy.

So I melted down, and DH held me while I cried, and we talked about the fact that if IVF #1 had worked, I would now be in the situation that my sister is in, and how hard I find that thought, and how hard it is to be kept in limbo over the work situation, and how worried I am that we'll never have children. We talked about the IVF, and I now know that he's not just doing this for me, and I know exactly how much it means to him - that article helped, as he used it as a sort of jumping-off point to compare his thoughts and feelings with the guy who wrote the article.

I don't feel much better today, because all of the uncertainty still remains, and I feel that there's not a single area of my life at the moment which is under my control. But I do know that I'm incredibly lucky to be married to this wonderful, loving man, and I know that whatever happens, we're in it together.

Just another Sunday...

So, after I wrote my post yesterday, I went onto Facebook - and waded through all the 'Happy Mothers' Day' wishes (and it's not even Mothers' Day here!), good wishes to my sister after she updated her status saying that it was her due date, people either boasting or complaining about their children (though I have now hidden the worst offenders) and then came to... another pregnancy announcement.

Went to church, then decided I really must give DH some driving practice, so offered to let him drive to my sister's house. He was nervous, wanting to impress me, and didn't drive well. We managed two miles before he got frustrated with himself, took it out on me, told me it was all my fault that he hadn't been able to concentrate, and reduced me to tears. We've now agreed that although I would love to help him in any way I can, it's probably counterproductive and possibly relationship-damaging for me to take him out practising.

The day could only go up from there, and despite the cold, damp, miserable weather, it did.

We had a lovely time at my sister's - my parents and younger brother and his wife were also there. BIL cooked a superb lunch, we sat around the table chatting for hours, and the children were all on their usual good form.

In the evening, I went on Facebook again, and the friend who had posted her pregnancy announcement in the morning had posted another status update: "Praying today for all those whose dream of motherhood has not been fulfilled", and somehow that made me feel good - a bit less invisible.

And then I went to bed, thinking of Sonja and her four babies, and Egghunt, whose embryo transfer should be today, and hoping and praying that all is going well with both of them.

Ambivalence

When I was a little girl, I had blonde hair and big blue eyes - and three brothers. I used to kneel down every night and pray for a little sister. After my sister was born, my dad always said that I must be responsible for her existence, because how could God resist such heartfelt pleas from a little girl? (Obviously, I'm not cute and blonde any more - maybe that's where I'm going wrong...)

Anyway, my sister came along when I was 7, and from the moment she was born she has been one of my favourite people in the world. Five years ago, she came very close to death when she had an operation that went wrong, and during the long months of her recovery I spent a lot of time either at her house or at my parents' house, looking after her and my niece. She is the family member who lives closest to me, and if we go three weeks without seeing each other, that's a long time.

Today is the due date for her fourth child. I'm so happy that she's still here to be having a fourth child, and I know I'll love this baby as much as I love the other three. I also know she's going to need some help while the baby's very small, and I'm always happy to go to her house and help with bathtime and bedtime, or to have my nieces for a night at my house to give her a break. And since it looks as though I'll be unemployed in a couple of months, it'll be even easier to give her a hand while DH and my BIL are at work.

On Thursday of last week, she had an appointment with the doctor, who said that the baby was fully engaged and could arrive at any moment. As the other three were all at least a week late, she wasn't prepared for this news, and BIL hadn't got any of the baby stuff out of the loft yet. The one thing that concerned her was that she had nothing for the baby to wear if it was born - the cradle and car seat could be got down from the loft while she was in hospital, but as she said, hospitals do prefer babies not to be left naked after they've been born.

So on Thursday afternoon, I nipped out and scoured the shops for something for the baby to wear, just in case. I wanted a pack of babygros, but they were all either pink or blue, and we don't know yet what she's having. So I found a nice little yellow and white outfit, and took that over to her. I then stayed and helped put the children to bed, and told her that I would be available for babysitting duties at any time of the day or night if needed.

Then last weekend DH and I had the children overnight while my sister and BIL got everything down from the loft and sorted it all out, so that by the time they picked the children up the next day, everything was ready.

And ten days after she was told the baby could arrive any minute, we're still waiting. My parents have now arrived and will be staying with her for the duration, so I'm off babysitting duty standby.

The last ten days have been Baby Fever Central - every e-mail mentions it, there's been another one from my SIL saying what a special and precious time this is for my sister, even my friends are now asking me if there's any news whenever I speak to them.

I never knew I could be so excited for someone else and so sad for myself all at the same time.

He's learning...

As DH left the house this morning, he said, "Oh, by the way, I've got a banana and a cheese sandwich with me, so I won't be tempted to have crisps or junk food."

After all these months, he's finally taking responsibility for his own food choices! Perhaps he does listen to some of what I say after all.

(Or perhaps it's just because he made such unhealthy choices on Wednesday and my complaints are still fresh in his ears...)

Lots of talking

I've been busy in the 'real' world the last few days - since Monday was a bank holiday, we were able to have the nieces overnight on Sunday night while my sister and BIL got the baby stuff out of the loft and prepared their house for the arrival of the new baby. We also went to a party on Saturday night, had people over for supper on Sunday, and work is busy this week (especially when I keep finding myself googling stuff about redundancy rights rather than getting on with the job that still needs to be done until the 'consultation' is over).

In between all that, there's been a lot of talking going on. DH read that article the first chance he had after I mentioned it to him. He was then the one who raised it with me, saying he had found it very interesting. I asked if he identified with what the author had said, and he talked about how hard he has found it to raise any of his own doubts or fears about what we've been going through. I think he was relieved to see some of his feelings put into words and to realise that he's not the only one feeling that way.

We also talked again about the Foresight regime - again, raised by DH. We had a wardrobe we wanted to get rid of, and some friends came and took it off our hands on Monday afternoon. DH and my friend's husband carried it downstairs and got it into the car. It then occurred to all of us that my friend wouldn't be able to carry it with her husband up two flights of stairs to their flat, so she stayed and had a cup of tea with me while DH went with the husband to deliver the wardrobe.

When he came back (remarkably quickly), he was very proud of himself and said he was amazed that he had been able to do all that heavy lifting without getting out of puff and working up a huge sweat. He attributed it entirely to the general improvement in his health and fitness since we started the Foresight regime - and I think he's right, as he's actually been going to the gym a lot less since he started learning to drive (and doesn't work particularly hard when he's at the gym anyway).

His general level of health is so much better, he has *ahem* more stamina in the bedroom department, he looks trimmer and fitter, and I'm really hoping that it's had as good an effect on his boys as it has on him. He's also being an awful lot better about keeping his alcohol intake down, although I am allowing him the occasional drink.

And of course, the other thing we've been talking about is how we're going to manage without my salary. This is quite a big deal, as I earn more than twice what he does. We now reckon that we can manage on his salary and my redundancy payout until the end of this year, and have agreed that the time is right for me to have a go at doing freelance work - which will be much less lucrative, but will give me more time and less stress, particularly in the early stages before I build up much of a portfolio of work. Because it can be done at home and is not tied to a particular time of day, it's also something I could continue if and when we have a baby.

And on the having a baby thing, we already have the money earmarked for this next round of IVF. But last night he said, "I don't want you to have the stress of thinking this is our last chance. If we need to have another go after this, I have some savings that we can use for it."

Of course, he's made absolutely no provision for his pension, and it doesn't look as though we'll be building up many more savings in the future, so I'd rather not touch his 'running-away fund'. But as with my dad's offer the other day, it's nice to know he cares that much.

The man's perspective

There was an article in the Times yesterday about infertility and IVF from a man's perspective. I found it interesting (though the comment at the end from the woman at Relate was a bit odd - 'self-service' is only banned for a couple of days leading up to egg collection, surely). I found the comments left by readers equally interesting - there was only one negative comment, and what I thought were some very good responses to it.

DH actually sounded very interested when I told him the article was there (in the print copy, in the Weekend section, this one was accompanied by three others, all talking about the man's perspective on IVF, but I can't see the other ones online). We had a busy day yesterday, but hopefully some time over the next few days he'll get a chance to read the whole feature.

I'll be interested to see what sort of reaction it sparks from him...

Not this month

Yesterday was CD 1, so this morning I dropped into XXXX clinic for a blood test on my way to work.

The call came early in the afternoon. The nurse told me that Mr Miracle Worker had reviewed my results, and because my FSH level was slightly higher than he would like, he did not recommend that I go ahead with treatment this cycle.

I had to press further to get actual numbers - FSH 11.4, oestradiol 143 and LH 7.3. This compares with the monitoring cycle I had in March, where the corresponding numbers were 9.1, 220 and 4.7, and the original tests I had last summer, where the numbers were 13.2, 156 and 5.3.

Looked at in the round, then, these figures are probably the best I've had so far, so I think things are still moving in the right direction.

I pointed out that the oestradiol was quite a lot lower than on the monitoring cycle, and that high oestradiol can artificially reduce the FSH level. The nurse sort of accepted that, but said that it's FSH that they concentrate on. The magic figure for me to cycle is FSH below 10. I did also read in their literature that they don't like to treat women with oestradiol above 200, so I'm pleased that's a lot lower this time.

The FSH still isn't as bad as it was last summer, but is obviously higher than on my monitoring cycle. Since I have shown that I can get an FSH below 10, Mr Miracle Worker doesn't want to treat me in a month when it's above 10.

Am I disappointed? Well, a little - it means more waiting, and there's always the worry that my FSH might never come back down again.

But then again, it allows us to complete the four month Foresight programme before we go into the actual treatment cycle, and DH has promised faithfully that he will stick to the programme for another month and won't get plastered when we go to visit his old drinking buddy in a couple of weeks' time.

And this week has not exactly been stress-free, and the next few weeks won't be too much better, so it'll be better to go ahead with the treatment when things at work are a bit less up in the air.

And it allows me to concentrate on my sister and being available to give her whatever help she needs with the arrival of her latest baby now imminent.

And for as long as we haven't completed this cycle, we still have hope, so in many ways I'm a little afraid to get started, and quite happy in a cowardly sort of way to accept any delays that are forced on us.

So I'm a little bit disappointed, a little bit relieved, and now I have another 25 days to kill before I can go back and try again.

Two people made me cry yesterday...

... but in completely different ways.

The first was one of my colleagues. He has a baby who is almost a year old. After the Big Bosses and the HR person had left the meeting room, we sat and discussed the news we had just heard, how it would affect us and what we might do next.

Everyone in the department knows about our IVF, although I've never had a direct conversation with this guy about it. He was sitting next to me as I said that our savings were a bit depleted because of the IVF and then feebly joked that if we ended up never having children, we wouldn't need much in the way of savings anyway.

He comes in almost daily with complaints of his sleep being disturbed by his baby, and he instantly piped up, "You can have mine."

I couldn't help it - out of nowhere, my eyes welled up and it took a couple of seconds for me to compose myself, especially after another colleague instantly defended me by pointing out to him what a crass comment that was.

And then there was the other end of the scale - when I told my dad about the meeting at work, he said, "I know you've got big expenses coming up, and I don't want this to get in the way of your IVF. If you need money, even if it's a lot of money, come to me first."

And that choked me up so much that it took a couple of seconds for me to be able to thank him, and although I don't ever expect to take him up on the offer, I'm just so grateful that he thought of it and that he obviously really appreciates how important this is to us.

It is well with me

Those were the last words of St Peter Chanel, whose feast day is today, as he lay dying following an attack by an angry mob. I feel they're quite apt as I contemplate the dying embers of my career...

The meeting this morning did not go well. We were put on notice that a 'consultation' period will be beginning in two weeks, at the end of which there 'may' be redundancies. This is lawyer-speak for 'none of you will have a job in a couple of months' time'.

There is a faint possibility that one or two people out of the seven of us will be kept on, but if that happened, the job description would have to be changed beyond all recognition to allow the work to be done by two people - all seven of us are working pretty much flat-out at the moment.

DH and I chatted about it last night, and we came to the following conclusions.

First, we reckon that with the pay that's still coming to me between now and when I get kicked out, together with his salary and what's left of our savings and a bit of belt-tightening, we can probably manage until the end of the year, which gives me a chance to work out what's going to happen next.

Second, it's almost certain that I'll never again earn as much money as I am doing at the moment - and we're both OK with that. He said he'll support me in whatever decision I make about the future - at the moment, freelance work is looking like a possible option, but we'll see.

Third, if my FSH level is OK this month, I'm cancelling the out of town work commitment that would have prevented us going ahead with treatment. Why should I put our possible future on hold for the sake of a job I'm about to lose?

Fourth, if I do keep my job and end up getting pregnant, I'll stay long enough to get maternity leave, then tell them I'm not coming back.

And finally and most importantly - this is not a disaster for us, but an opportunity. I'm angry at the way we've been treated, but excited to see what the future holds.

Wish me luck...

We were told on Monday that the Big Boss wants to see as many members of my department as can make it today, to tell us the result of a review of the department's role. The review has not involved any member of the department - we have not been consulted, and the person who has conducted the review has very little understanding of or respect for what we do. He's the sort of person who can only see value if it can be measured in figures on a spreadsheet - preferably with £ signs in front of them.

Most of us think that there are probably going to be redundancies, and there may also be a fundamental change in the job description of those who are left. As a small, close-knit team, either of these things will cause a lot of upheaval.

On the plus side, if I'm made redundant I'll be able to cancel the event that would otherwise prevent me from doing IVF #3 this cycle.

Unfortunately, I think a doubling or more of my workload is more likely than redundancy, possibly with a shift in emphasis to mean that I get to do more of the stuff I hate and less of the stuff I enjoy.

To say I'm less than excited about today is an understatement.

Hysteroscopy

We had to get up at 4:15 this morning and get the first train into London to get the XXXX clinic in time for my appointment.

The whole experience was very different from the old clinic, where we had our own room with private bathroom in a private hospital when I went for egg collection. Here, we stayed in the waiting room for over an hour after I'd signed the consent forms, then I was led down into the basement and left in a little changing room with 23 pairs of shoes (I counted) and several other people's clothes already in the shelves in neat little piles.

The gown I had to put on was a disposable paper one, and I got a mob cap and a pair of plastic bootees to go with it. Shame DH never got to see me looking so sexy - he stayed in the waiting room, snoozing in one of the overstuffed armchairs, all the time I was downstairs.

I was told Mr Miracle Worker himself was doing the procedure, but if he was, I don't think I saw him - I'm sure I've seen a picture of him in a magazine, and there was nobody looking like that in the theatre when I went to sleep.

After the procedure was over, I was wheeled into the recovery room, along with four other people in beds, some of whom had just had hysteroscopies while others had had egg collection. I was the third on the list, so two of those four beds were added after I came in. There were also two people on recliners who were getting IVIg at the same time.

The nurses were lovely and very attentive, and although I only got a drink and a couple of digestive biscuits rather than the omelette and ice cream I had at the old clinic, this place isn't about the frills, but about what I hope they'll achieve for me.

I did ask yesterday whether it was right that I was having it done before, rather than after, my period, and was told that as I was on the short protocol and the main purpose of this was exploratory, this was correct. So they did all the measurements, had a good look round and removed a couple of polyps that happened to be in there - which makes me feel that I made the right decision to have this done.

As I was leaving, they confirmed once again that it wouldn't be possible for me to have treatment this next cycle if I have to go away for this work thing in a couple of weeks. There's a faint possibility I won't have to, but more about that tomorrow...

Sod's law

On Saturday, we bought some new garden furniture. We were due to be out for most of yesterday, taking the MIL out for lunch for her birthday, but DH had a driving lesson first thing in the morning, so I had a plan to sit out on our new bench reading the Sunday papers while he was gone.

That is, I had that plan until we woke up and looked out of the window. After the beautiful sunshine of the last few days, yesterday morning it poured with rain, and I stood by the back door for several minutes watching the raindrops pooling on our nice new bench.

I couldn't help feeling that the universe was cocking a snook at me. Not only did we have nice new garden furniture that we wanted to try out, but I had watered the lawn on Saturday. And on Sunday, it got another really good soaking.

And that's why I'm not going to buy any baby equipment until I'm pregnant. Preferably several months pregnant. Or maybe I should wait until the baby's actually born. Or until... well, I should be safe if I wait until it's about 18.

I already have a certain amount of baby equipment in my house. It was bought for my nephews and nieces and other visiting babies, and has already been very well used. It will continue to be well used by my sister's children for at least another couple of years. So I should be safe, but I hope this mischievous universe hasn't noticed that it's here.

Party chat

We went to a friend's 50th birthday party last night. It was an absolutely fantastic affair, one of the best parties I've ever been to.

But there are some things that somehow always manage to intrude.

You know how when you've been friends with someone for a while, you get to know several of their friends? And you don't keep in touch with them off your own bat, because you're not really that close, but it's nice to see them when you do happen to meet up?

Well, there were several people in that category at the party last night, and it was great to catch up with them. And because it was the first time I'd seen most of them since I met DH, there was a lot of catching up to do.

Several of them asked if I still had the classic sports car that used to be my pride and joy, and I had to tell them that I had very sadly had to change it for a sensible car (mostly so I could ferry my parents-in-law around - you can't get two octogenarians in the back of what's effectively a two-seater car).

A couple of people nodded wisely and made comments about needing a family car with room to put a baby seat in. I carried on talking about DH's unreasonable dislike for my old car and ignored them, and fortunately they didn't push it.

Then I was in another group. There was a young guy in his twenties there, one of my friend's nephews. Two of the women started teasing him about his parents' desire for grandchildren. There was a bit of light banter, then one of them said, "Of course, if you're not going to have children, you'd better be nice to your nieces and nephews, because they're the ones who'll choose your nursing home."

Cue lots of laughter and merriment and other comments about the possible consequences of never having your own children.

And I smiled and laughed along with everyone else as I quietly died a little bit inside.